By Don Simonini
To The Editor,
I’ve read that some legislator is proposing a bill to take away our right to vote on future school budgets and allow school boards to decide future budgets. She’s basically saying we aren’t smart enough to vote properly so let’s take away that right and give it to Montpelier. This is the same bunch of people who cannot fix the whole school property tax mess in the first place. Remember the reason for the Boston Tea Party: taxation without representation.
These same legislators have passed the so-called Clean Heat Act to increase propane costs by $0.70 cents per gallon. I’m told this will force us to move faster toward heat pumps. Again, the esteemed people in Montpelier feel they are so much smarter than those who voted them into office. For a family with a 2,000- to 2,500-square foot home, they will consume about 900 to1,000 gallons of propane per year. At a $0.70 per gallon surcharge, this will cost a family $700 to $1,000 extra each year. How does a family afford this kind of artificial increase in their propane needs and continue to put food on the table?
We’ll have a substantial property tax increase coming from the whatever the final school budget looks like, and now this propane tax could see an average family needing to come up with $2,000 to $5,000 extra, per year. Depending on the next plan for the school infrastructure bond, these estimates are likely way too low. After some future bond vote we likely will see our property taxes go up substantially more than anything we can imagine today.
What is wrong with our state representatives? How can they be so out of touch with their electorate? We each need to speak up and get engaged as the folks in Montpelier on the legislative side don’t have a clue with how they are managing our tax dollars. In some past years we would joke we are living in “the People’s Republic of Vermont.” Well, here we are. The joke’s on us!
Don Simonini
Fayston
